More accessible
Disabled people have barriers thrust upon them
In a waiting room
Such a refreshing sight. No, not the leg, though that is certainly remarkable. It’s what the woman is holding. A real, honest book. Not a tablet, not a smart phone. Just the old analog format, the way we humans traded ideas for centuries.
Twilight words
Magical Meditative Restful Three words of the twilight. As summer spins away from the solstice, twilight lengthens in the hour when shadows are extinguished. It’s still light till 9, but the air is settling faster toward night.
In this magical time, white blossoms gleam in the darkening garden. Frogs are silent now, but crickets can be heard in some precincts. Crows caw their way across the still-warm sky.
This is a time for quiet walks on pavement that retains some of the day’s heat. A meditative time, suffused with mystery as leaves darken with dusk. Jasmine releases its scent.
Breezes wrinkle the evening water. Fish jump and settle. Small animals skitter, ready for sleep or awakening to the night.
This is restful time, the last yawn of the day. Mourning doves and pigeons coo their way to sleep.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I can sometimes hear great horned owls calling back and forth. Birds built like barrels, two feet tall, fluffing their feathers for nocturnal noshing.
Fold this magical time, evening, to your breast. Take it to bed with you, the window open to night sounds. Traffic perhaps; distant train whistles. No rain, though. This is Oregon, and summer rain is rare.
Rare, too, are these quiet, meditative, restful evenings. Breathe in the soft air. Then turn over, and pull sleep around you like a welcome, warm quilt.
I wish for you sweet summer dreams.
More about barriers
Continuing with our mantra of the month, Walk Every Day, I have more to say about access.
Driving my wheelchair around town brings me face-to-face with real obstacles. Broken pavement; potholes; bushes and other plants that encroach on the right of way—these may be bigger hazards than traffic.
Sidewalks that give way to driveways that slope to the street. Suddenly you’re like a sheep on a hillside, listing. I’ve fallen off my scooter on a sloping driveway. The power chair is sturdier, with builtin gyroscopes that right it when it starts to tip.
Good luck crossing Oleson Road from the Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. You must maneuver over bumpy pavement to avoid the crater. Fran Gardner photo Broken pavement. Why broken pavement is so prevalent in crosswalks, I’ll never know. Sometimes I have to creep across a street, dodging bumps, holes and loose gravel, barely making it over before than light changes.
Wonky curb cuts. Older designs, especially, often have sloping sides that have to be maneuvered in a short turning radius. Some cause Sulky* to tip at an alarming level. Again, gyroscopes to the rescue.
*Sulky won the competition for the name of my power chair, beating out Sparafucile, Sarastro and Mach (for Machiavelli). Got a better idea? Message me or leave a comment.
Vegetation. Careless property owners let brambles, trees, grass and leaves overtake the sidewalk, pushing you toward the curb with its deep drop-off.
Signs and garbage cans. Often, these are left in the middle of the sidewalk, with a space for people to walk around that’s sometimes too narrow for a walker or wheelchair. Notice how the land at the right edge of the pathway drops off sharply. That scared me. I gently nudged the sign out of the way.
Hard-to-reach traffic light buttons. Often the pavement at the base is narrow or sloping in a way that’s dangerous to power chairs.
As in the photo above, steep drop-offs at the edge of pavement, with no lip to keep you from disaster if your wheelchair gets too close.
Speed bumps that cover the entire parking lot, as at Barbur World Foods or the Hillsdale farmers market. Too steep to go over, nowhere to go around; you must retreat and find another route.
Right next to a crosswalk but no way to approach it. Fran Gardner photo Sidewalks to nowhere. Just a curb; no ramp. Time to backtrack.
Fran Gardner photo And finally, wheelchair access that’s just difficult to navigate. At the Hillsdale shopping center, the curb is low enough for about 16 inches at the bottom of the stairs, a tight maneuver around the tire stop. It’s still a bump.
Not on Target
The Target shopping center on the Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway is an access nightmare.
The only way onto the property is the car access driveway, where the bicycle is crossing. One mindless motorist, and you are toast.
The only ramp at the center is near the highway leading to Pizzicato Pizza and the strip mall walkway. Target is at the back end of the property.
I thought the walkway would lead me to Target, but it ended at a curb without a ramp. So no Target that way. Back to the Pizzicato ramp.
Looking back along the sidewalk, the ramp is beyond the man, at the last patch of sunlight. Good thing I didn’t walk this dead end with a walker.
Then it’s down the ramp and through the parking lot—the car parking lot—to enter Target. At least the store has automatic doors.
Crips are customers, too
When the effects of the Americans with Disabilities Act were first manifest, I marveled at the addition of lower drinking fountains next to the standard ones. How much extra that must cost.
Now, of course, I’m grateful for the lower fountain. That’s the one I can reach.
Conservative legislators are still trying to limit the reach of the ADA, claiming it’s too expensive to implement. But as the population ages, and paying customers like me need access, amenities like ramps make economic sense.
Time for crows
On July evenings, as I sit writing at window that overlooks a stand of Doug firs and their deciduous friends, hundreds of crows come flying over the treetops, all gliding in the same direction.
All with one purpose. And it’s not to eat Cheez-Its.
Crow convo
Off to the east in ragged formation Bird after bird, black against blue. Dusk will be on us but now the light shimmers Limning black feathers as crows flap and soar. I know where they’re going, magical corvids— Off to the river to settle and sit I’ve seen them there often, the murder of twilight Thousands of birds in a blanket of black. Why do they muster as earth spins toward evening? Cawing and answering, wings folded in prayer, Whispering crow secrets—How did the day go? Did you eat enough Cheez-Its? Is your family safe? Then off like a ragged shawl launched over water Twisting in rhythm, a spiral of black. Farewell to your feathers, brave sunlit creatures! Bring all your cousins, next time we alight. We are the murder, the crows of our clan, Tested by weather, the wind, snow and rain. Peckers of carrion and lovers of Cheez-Its— Remember our number: we’ll be here again.
Bus story
As the 14-Hawthorne bus pulls away from the Grand Avenue stop, the driver announces “This next stop is yours.” That’s when he notices that the man he thought he was addressing had already gotten off the bus.
So he stops the bus, taps the horn and opens the door. “You the one who wanted OMSI?” he says. “Next stop.”
And the man steps back into the bus.
“It’s a nice day,” the driver observes, “but that would have been more walking than you counted on.”
Check out
A resident at Rose Schnitzer Manor has a ball cap that reads SISU. I make a guess or two: Southern Illinois State University? Staten Island State U?
Not hardly, says Bill Shapiro, the owner of the cap.
Sisu is Finnish. It means a certain determined stoicism—grit, as Bill says. Seeing a difficult situation through to its end.
It’s not translatable into English, especially in America, where the more ascetic nature of the Finnish national character would have little appeal.
“Coraggio,” the Italian word (well know to opera lovers) for brave tenacity, may be closer.
As the world as we know it begins to buckle and crack, sisu is a quality we need.
Morning walk
My friend Zetta walked, I glided. I showed her a secret place where we could pick blackberries and apples.
When we returned, a passer-by asked “How are you?” and Zetta replied:
“Somewhere between great and fantastic.”
That is what I wish for you, friends. A day that is on the fantastic side of great.
—30—
Sue,
So sorry to hear about the loss of your nephew.
Drivers also park in the striped spaces. I often leave a note under the windshield wiper or tucked into the door handle. No need to be nasty; people respond better to a gently worded reminder.
My newly-departed nephew, Greg, told me about how people would leave shopping carts in the painted space next to van parking, making it impossible for him to use the lift on his van. I'm going to share this on my Facebook page. He died last week and so many memories are coming up that remind me of how he helped raise awareness about disabilities and access. He was a consultant in local ADA issues.